Chris Brandrick

It seems in the past two months my blog hasn’t seen much love, but rest assured this isn’t down to me fleeing the online scene, in fact far from it. Since moving house back in April and finishing University for the year in early May (exams, fun!) I have been in the process of starting up a design company with three other good friends, all of which have a good background in design, coding and of course running a business.

The company is based in Lincoln, UK, and last week we finally moved into our office in the heart of the city center. I am currently in the process of designing the companies website and hopefully soon we should all be ready to go. Kufu is the companies name (or Kufu Design if you so wish), and we are on the look out for clients to get the ball rolling, so if you need a design making, a whole site coding or something more simple do not hesitate to get in touch and help us out as we start out. You can find us at Kufu.co.uk, which currently has just placeholder contact details up, but keep an eye on the site as it will be changing soon.

Let us know your thoughts!

James McDonald is an 18 year old web designer from Scotland, and for those of you that read my blog you may remember the name from his old blog, EatFruitPlease. James no longer writes for that blog, but has recently opened a new blog under the name ‘Flockey.com‘ which concentrates on web design along with offering superb web design services.

If you need a web site designing then James is well worth checking out, take a glance over his portfolio for yourself, and if thats not enough to sway you subscribers to my RSS feed via email can receive an additional 25% discount off their first order at Flockey.com. All you have to do is look out for the promotional code in your inbox if you are an email subscriber to ChrisBrandrick.com, if not subscribe; the code will be sent out to new subscribers daily. To use your promotional code just mention it when ordering through Flockey.com!

The 25% promotional code is valid for all of April. Flockey deliver high quality website design.

I had some free time this evening and came across this Photoshop tutorial over at PSDTuts and decided to give it a go, so here is a wallpaper to celebrate Easter, just click the below image to see the full size version (1280×1024).

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy easter!

When designing choosing the right font can be crucially important, it can help obtain the right look and solidify your brand (if that’s the case); so it’s defiantly worth taking the time out to find the right font for your work. Wikipedia defines typography as: Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type; read more about it, and it’s history at the above link.

Finding various typography sites that offer up quality (and in most cases free) fonts, and are regularly updated is no easy task, but below I have listed a handful of sites which offer quality free typography. Be sure to check them out, and if you have any further recommendations just drop me a comment using the comment form, no registration required!

• Fawnt - Easy to navigate website, offering a clean view of stylish fonts.
• DaFont - Very wide selection, some great, some not so great. Categories make finding something specific easier.
• DeviantArt - More oddball and random font styles can be found here, but with so many to choose from something weird is bound to attract.
• SmashingMagazine - This superb website has a good small section dedicated to fonts, which features some really great stuff.

I may be making some obvious omissions here as to whats good for fonts on the web, but I personally recommend the above few sites, if you have any to recommend, just comment and I will add it to the list! Don’t forget the importance of type when it comes to designing!

Photo by Janvi Agulto

Recently I have been working on a redesign for my blog, mainly because I feel it’s about time I got a personalized look and a unique design to help strengthen my online identity and brand. I have made several designs and mocks in photoshop but haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet with the look I want to go for.

When the time is right I will no doubt show the mock designs, and of course the design I plan to go with here on the blog. In terms of colours I will be using blues, greys and blacks, and for branding I will continue to build upon using my personalized avatar, be it in advertising, emails and around the site. As for coding the design from a psd to a valid Wordpress theme I am still on the look out for somebody to complete this task, and despite me having a few people/companies in mind I am always open to suggestions, so either drop a comment below or contact me.

Getting a custom design for my blog was one of my goals for 2008, and now having made a start on visualizing how I want it to look, I am feeling very confident on reaching this goal.

This is the third post in my series of BlogReviews, if you are interested in receiving a free blog review, please click here to find out more information.

ReviewBunker is a relatively new blog which launched in November of last year. It has a simple yet ambitious goal to review ‘everything’. It would probably be more appropriate to say that ReviewBunker will review ‘anything’.

To those new to the site you are instantly greeted with a simple yet concise blurb of text as to what the blog is about, which contains links to other sections of the site, this is a great way of letting visitors know what your about, although a suggested addition to this front page presence would be to add a link to the ‘request review‘ page.

The content on ReviewBunker is random to say the least, and for those of you looking for a review blog which concentrates on a specific area then this blog is not for you. ReviewBunker covers a wide range of products, websites and services from things like Brownie Cake Mix, Office boxes, even movies and restaurants. Despite this random mix, the writing is very concise and informative as well as pleasantly informal. If you do happen to find a review that takes your interest then I recommend reading it, as without a doubt it will be helpful.

ReviewBunker also offers readers the opportunity to become a guest blogger and review anything for the blog, so if you are looking for an outlet to review something, or anything, then this may be worth checking out.

The site uses a free blog design, which is customized with an appropriate header image, the colour scheme is easy on the eyes and overall flows well, and boasts well integrated AdSense adverts. Oh, and it has the Entrecard widget, which is great.

My only concern for ReviewBunker is that its content area is to broad, and it may be wise to cut this down, visitors will never know what to expect. Maybe even just reviewing offline products exclusively, and not reviewing websites. Reduce confusion.

A well written blog, with potential to shine. Focus and concentrate your niche to a more specific area, and keep up the good work.

http://www.reviewbunker.com/

A few days back I reviewed Bloggin-Ads, in the review I recommended possibly getting a custom theme. Now only days later Mike has posted about his new custom theme, and it’s live.

The new Bloggin-Ads.com

The new design, which even carries over the old colour scheme (see above) is now live on Bloggin-Ads, so check it out. Congratulations to Mike & Michelle on there new theme, I hope it brings in new readers!

Happy New Year! I hope you all have a great 2008 and achieve all that you aim to. (Also to bring in the new year, a congratulations from Scott at mythermos.com for winning my small holiday entrecard contest.)

Now as for my plans for 2008, these include goals for my blog, my sites and personal aims:

1. Get a custom blog design:

Mainly a goal I hope to achieve far before 2008 is even close to finished, I want to give ChrisBrandrick.com it’s own look and feel. It’s commonly known that using a public free theme (despite their merits) is frowned upon. Having a design unique to me gives my blog an identity, a brand, and recognition. John Cow has various cow theming, John Chow has that big car, TylerCruz has that nice custom avatar, all memorable stuff. Being unique is a big positive. So hopefully I can achieve this goal fairly soon. If you know of any good Wordpress design folks, let me know.

2. Increase my blog earnings:

Now from the offset this shouldn’t be to difficult, especially considering my blog is currently earning me £0. That’s right, I am currently making no money from this site, but this isn’t because I can’t, it’s because so far I just haven’t. The goal for 2008 is not only to make money but to make a specific amount per month. For those big internet entrepreneurs out there this may not seem like much, but it’s a goal I am realistically aiming for. By the end of the year I hope to be making a consistent £100 per month ($200 for you reading stateside) from ChrisBrandrick.com. This will be handled carefully, as for a start this blog will never be plastered with adverts, if and when I do implement ads it will be subtle and well placed. I hope to make the majority of this earning via reviews. Watch this space, as once I do start earning from this blog I will no doubt keep you guys in the loop.

3. Learn to drive:

I’m 21 in two days, here in the UK you can drive from the young age of 17. It’s about time I got a driving license and learned to drive, it’s a life skill I want. Sure traveling by train has served me well, but having your own set of wheels is an independence which I eventually want. This year, despite it’s pricey nature I hope to learn and pass my driving test, thats the goal. Buying a car is not.

4. Blog more:

All you have to do is look back over my archives for the past year to see that postings here at my blog have been lacking, sure it may well have picked up in the past month to a rate I am happy with but I intend to improve more, mainly to keep myself motivated and working. I intend to post at least (at a minimum) of five times a week. Hopefully you the reader will appreciate this to! More posts on my web developments, reviews and personal musings coming your way.

5. Launch WebmasterPlay:

You may remember all the way back in June of 2007 I posted about a webmaster forum I was creating, since then little work has took place on it for several reasons. Initially things were going well, with the front page created and the sites feature set building impressively. Unfortunately I hired an individual who wasn’t quite what I was looking for when it came to skinning the vBulletin forum. Due to this misfortune I took a break from developing the site, and this break lasted far longer than expected. I still really want to WebmasterPlay finished, and hopefully 2008 will be it’s year. Videogaming webmasters keep an eye out.

6. Increase RSS Subscriptions:

Only yesterday I made a posting detailing how I had installed Feedburner tools to my RSS feed. With this freshly installed I figured it would be worthwhile to make a goal relating to my readership. So with any luck by the end of the year my RSS subscription will hopefully be at 500, I have no idea how hard this goal will be to reach, but why not start me on the right path by subscribing now.

7. Get into my final year of University:

An academic goal which relies on me working hard(er) and getting the required grades, from now until May. Although without sounding to cocky, I am fairly confident that I will get into the 3rd and final year of University, this goal will act as a reminder as to why I am doing the course I am (Web Technology) and why I want to do it. The 3rd year starts in September so be sure to check back for the results then!

8. Launch and make a success of GameBrit:

This is the first time I have mentioned GameBrit on my blog, but here we go. GameBrit simply put is a british gaming website I have been working on for a short while, I hope to launch it within the next month or two. But more details on GameBrit coming in a separate post. I want to make sure I get it launched with the desired features, and getting at least 15,000 uniques per month before the year is out.

9. Purchase an iMac:

This goal really does depend on my online earnings, as I intend to fund this expensive purchase almost entirely from my money earned online. A new 20″ inch iMac, will it be mine this year?

10. Increase overall earnings:

What with me launching a small number of new sites this year (more details soon) I hope to start earning a healthy income from my online endeavors. As detailed above I would like to earn £100 a month from my blog, so on a whole £1000 a month from all my sites seems like a logical target. This will require a lot of personal effort and hopefully I will see the results. £1000 ($2000) per month from my portfolio of websites.

Those are my goals for the year, and hopefully when I come back to review this post in a years time, it will have been a successful year. (The above aims are in no particular order.)

I wish you all a productive new year; be sure to share your goals with me!